Will Spitzer "Mann" Up?

Matt Lewis | March 12, 2008 5:49 PM

Now that he has stepped down, my guess is that Eliot Spitzer will probably not be prosecuted, but if he is, it will likely be under The White Slave Traffic Act of 1910 -- otherwise known as the Mann act (named after James Robert Mann). Essentially, this law prohibits the movement of prostitutes across state lines.

The act is rarely enforced, but Spitzer was known to use obscure laws to go after his enemies, so who knows?

I found this interesting:

The first person prosecuted under the act was heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson, who had an affair with a prostitute named Lucille Cameron. Johnson married Cameron so that she couldn't be made to testify against him. Belle Schreiber, a prostitute that had at some point left a brothel and traveled with him to another state, was the next in line to testify against Johnson. He was eventually prosecuted and sentenced to the maximum penalty of a year and a day in prison.